I tend to find many ways to "usefully" avoid working on my dissertation. But one thing I seem to do a lot is to think about ways I can get computers to do my work for me. Total success still eludes me but I thought I would start sharing what I have learned along the way. Topics in this blog should especially appeal to social science researchers but may appeal to geeks of other persuasions as well. UPDATED WEEKLY (sort of).

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Synchronizing Files on More than One Computer: Sync Toy

While I often feel very lucky to have both a laptop and a desktop at my disposal, I have often found it difficult to stay organized while using both. Files created on one don't always make it to the other. I don't actually use my laptop all that often, so it is frequently the case that I have a large number of files in a large number of directories to copy from my desktop to my laptop. And I cannot always remember what the specific files are!

Fortunately, some of the people at Microsoft (apparently photographers) have created a FREE solution: Sync Toy. In their own words:

SyncToy is a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows XP that provides is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without added complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

There are probably better ways to go about doing this, but I haven't found one. [I know there are expensive software solutions out there, but this one is free.] And so far this works!